ALMATY (AFP) – A Tajik soldier was killed in a shootout between border forces at Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s contested frontier yesterday, local and Russian media reported.
Shootouts between border troops of the two impoverished Central Asian countries have become increasingly frequent in recently as delimitation talks makelittle progress.
Tajikistan, a closed authoritarian state, made no statement on the latest flare-up, but police in the Tajik city of Isfara near the border told Russian news agency RIA Novosti that Kyrgyz border guards opened fire on Tajik troops “without reason” early yesterday morning.
“As a result, a border guard soldier died and three people were injured,” the news agency reported, citing a representative of the city police department.
The privately owned Tajik news website Asia-Plus also reported the death of a Tajik soldier, quoting a resident of the Tajik enclave of Vorukh, which is close to where the shootout took place.
